The URLs in your responses spreadsheet are missing

You want to retrieve your URLs in your responses spreadsheet but they are missing. You received an email informing that Form Publisher failed to write in your spreadsheet. This article explains the main reasons of this issue and how to solve it.

How to retrieve your file URLs in your responses spreadsheet?

You have sent a Google Form and after receiving multiple responses you want to retrieve your files URLs in your responses spreadsheet:

Unfortunately, all or part of the URLs are missing:

Several reasons can explain your issue. We suggest checking the different points listed below.

1. Check your Form Publisher configuration

Make sure you have selected ‘Keep file URL’ and ‘Save increment’ in your ‘Destination folder and naming convention’ sidebar:

Depending on your configuration but you need to save it by clicking ‘Next’ or ‘Save’ at the bottom right corner:

2. An error message appears: your responses spreadsheet is missing

You want to save your Form Publisher configuration but an error message appears:

If you have enabled 'Keep increment' and/or 'Keep file URL’ options in your ‘Destination folder and naming convention’ sidebar, Form Publisher will necessarily need your responses spreadsheet in order to generate files.

1. You have different sheets in your responses spreadsheet

Once you have created your Google Form, all the data automatically input in a Google Spreadsheet.

If you want to create another spreadsheet after multiple responses, you can either create a completely new spreadsheet or select an existing one (a new tab will be created at the bottom of your existing spreadsheet).

In our example, we decided to create a new spreadsheet. Click ‘Select’:

You can see at the bottom of your spreadsheet a new sheet called ‘Form Responses 2’ by default.

info The Google Form icon is a reference point to know on which sheet Form Publisher is linked to.

Each time a respondent will submit a form, all the responses will be saved in your new tab. However, the file URLs and the increment columns will be missing:

warning The file URLs and the increment numbers will not be saved and will be lost until you change the named ranges of your new Google Sheet.

From your new Google Sheet, click ‘Data’ > ‘Named ranges’:

A sidebar appears:

You will just have to delete the named ranges. Then, refresh the page and Form Publisher will automatically create new ones after a new submission.

To do the above, click on the pencil icon:

Click on the trash icon:

Click ‘Remove’:

Proceed for each named range if you have more.

done That’s it! You can now reload the page. All your submissions will be saved in your new Google Sheet with the URLs needed.

2. Change a column's name on your header

warning We recommend contacting our support if you have written your header in a different language. As some languages are not implemented in Form Publisher yet, it can be the reason of your issue.

info Please note that if you have made any changes in your responses spreadsheet it can affect Form Publisher, for example:

Moving or adding columns and/or rows

Adding new sheets

Rename titles header (questions, timestamp)

If you have changed a title on your header and Form Publisher can't retrieve the named ranges associated, your URL will be missing:

Each time a form will be submitted, the URL will be missing:

To solve the above issue, you will need to change the named ranges from your new tab.

From your Google Sheet, click ‘Data’ > ‘Named ranges’:

A sidebar appears:

info You can either modify or delete the existing Form Publisher's named ranges. As best is to start from scratch, we recommend to delete the existing named ranges from your Google Spreadsheet before adding new ones.

warning Make sure to not delete the other named ranges (especially if you have multiple sheets connected to Form Publisher).

To do the above, click on the pencil icon:

In our example, we decided to delete our named ranges. Click on the trash icon:

Click ‘Remove’:

Proceed for each named range.

Then, please refer to the table below which contains the specific names of your named ranges:

Might be worth mentioning that the Timestamp automatically tries to assign itself A1. If you have inserted a column to the left of this it will in fact be B1. (Even if the timestamp seems to be working fine, if the timestamp is wrong the rest won't work). Spent a good 20 minutes before i figured out this problem :)